undressed
Exploring the conscious, the unconscious and the self, By Winds and Tides takes a deep experimental dive into the birth of an idea—how it takes shape, how it is released. An allegorical quest, the film combines images and words into a singular sigh.
Plaga Alada
An experimental sampled film which shows the pleasurable art of movies about movies through scenes inside of theaters.
The sun’s energy circulates throughout the earth, feeding the cycle of life. Everything is connected in a natural loop, which repeats, like the circular discs of magical optical toys. This perfectly balanced rhythm is disrupted by human excess, throwing the cycle out of orbit and temporarily stopping the circulation of energy in nature.
Abstract video art set to the music of Philip Glass.
An NTSC space opera.
For the multimedia exhibition Tangenten I (Tangents I), Dammbeck and co-organizer, sculptor and painter Frieder Heinze had planned to collaborate on a film that would combine non-camera animation with 35mm footage of a train ride between the two Dresden districts of Radebeul and Pieschen. When the exhibition was banned in 1978, Heinze turned to other projects, but Dammbeck continued working on the film by himself. Metamorphoses I—the first experimental film ever to be shown publicly in East Germany—marks the filmic beginning of Dammbeck’s long-term art project the Herakles-Konzept (Hercules Concept).
Martín, a young urban raver, is involved in a strange accident on the road on his way to a party in the middle of the Argentine Pampas. Finding refuge in a mysterious country grocery store and sheltered by two strange locals, Martín's paranoia begins to take over him. As the hours progress, his perception begins to distort, unleashing disturbing visions that will lead him to confront the supernatural forces that hide in the night.
This project moves sound and image using wind movements. It shows the alteration of spectrograms with these motion vectors and applies a sound resynthesis.
Two figures —an angel bathed in light and a widow veiled in mourning— mirror each other’s gestures. Through the interplay of costume, color, and hand-drawn intervention, Emerge & Fade explores how innocence and disillusion coexist and transform one another.
A visual reinterpretation of dance and animated found footage.
Set beneath a surreal green sky on a distant, crumbling world, the film captures the last survivors of a dying civilization—women who perform a synchronized ritual dance to summon an ethereal extraterrestrial presence from another realm.
Autumn adventurers unite! "Leaf Peeper" takes you on a frantic frolic of Fall foliage until your eyes pop out. Shot on Super 8 in single frames with pixilation, puppet stop motion, frenetic pans, and plenty of plaid, this very short short film packs every second with as many picturesque and picaresque frames as possible, turning leaf peeping into equal parts immersion therapy and extreme sport to capture the sublime bliss of a lovely day out and about.
Keratin is a collaboration with the London Sinfionetta, visually responding to Gavin Higgins' Seven Welsh Folk Songs: I. Dacw 'Nghariad i. The film tells the journey of a mating of elements, two bodies grieve over a lost third: a child separated from their womb. The three bodies bound by their keratin, regain connection in a wombic journey which spiritually networks the three into a fused collective body.
The animation, music, and optical printing of Kitsch in Synch was produced by Beckett and the students in two classes he was teaching at CalArts. Although a group project, it is clear that Beckett was the director. The playful, catchy soundtrack is used to create a cycle of building tension and release. The brightly colored shapes create approximate symmetrical formations and become more densely layered, with glimpses of iconographic objects and even live footage near the end. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with the iotaCenter, in 2007.
'This Socks' is a stop motion animation short film that experiments with different techniques to illustrate a common everyday annoyance.
A poetic Super 8mm film created by Rachael Wilson and Anderson Matthew set to accompany the live recital performance of Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi – Chant d’amour et de mort (1945).
A class project by transgender multimedia artist/dog Natalie Pit. Features the band Cherry Pit performing the second half of their song "I AM NOT A PERSON", set against unlicensed footage from other trans filmmakers, including the likes of Lex Walton, Louise Weard, Cate Wurtz, Jane Schoenbrun and Lily Alexandre.
“And, 'twixt the shadows and frights of nocturnal splendors, My beloved will secretly be hiding. Say what you will, say what you may.” The sound of a distant whistle and theorbo calls a sleeping singer through the empty streets of Stuttgart in a midnight journey to the opera house. ‘dei notturni splendori’ is an experimental opera film made for the Staatsoper Stuttgart in the early months of the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Anderson Matthew captures the singer Helene Schneiderman through a midnight dream with a hand-cranked kino camera in an ecstatic 35mm photo roman, in search for her own performance of the Tarquinio Merula madrigal Folle é ben chi se crede from 1638.